The open breech of an 18-pounder field gun of 101st Battery, Royal Field Artillery, Hyderabad,...

The open breech of an 18-pounder field gun of 101st Battery, Royal Field Artillery, Hyderabad, Sind Province, 1919 circa. Photograph, India, 1919. The 101st Battery served during the 3rd Afghan War (1919) with Lieutenant-General Sir Richard Wapshare’s Baluchistan Force that captured the Afghan fortress at Spin Baldak on 27 May 1919. The use of artillery, initially in short-supply at the start of the campaign, was, alongside British airpower, a crucial factor in the outcome of both the war and the subsequent revolt in Waziristan. With a crew of ten men, this gun could fire 18-pound shrapnel, high explosive or smoke shells up to six kilometres (over 6,500 yards) From a photograph album of 137 photographs, relating to the 101st Battery, Royal Field Artillery in India 1917-1919